Rare NES Nintendo World Championship Cartridge Sale Surpasses $98K

One of the most sought after Nintendo cartridges of all time is up for auction once again. That is, as long as you're willing to part with $100,000.

Only 116 NES cartridges for the Nintendo World Championship were created, and every few years one pops up on an auction site for sale. Such was the case this week when a longtime game collector decided to part ways with a fairly rundown copy of the elusive competition game. The eBay auction began late this week with the opening bid set at $4,999. While previous versions of the Nintendo World Championship cartridge had reached sale numbers surpassing $20,000, this particular edition is one of the most beat-up copies we've ever seen. In fact, the label's been torn off, and a poorly handwritten note saying "Mario" is the distinguishing mark remaining.

Though the gold cartridge versions are much rarer, the grey versions are much easier to authenticate, and despite the poor condition there's no reason to believe this cartridge to be a reproduction. Curiously, the highest bids in recent years never surpassed $22,000 for much better cartridges, which does make the sudden value of $98,200.86 (at time of posting this story) a little dubious. False bids have likely driven the cost of the cartridge up tremendously over the past 24 hours, and we'll be curious to see just what the actual final paying bid ended up being. Still, if you did just win the lottery and always wanted to recreate that tournament lifestyle of the '90s, there's no time like the present to make one eBay seller extremely happy.